PARALYMPICS: Athens set off on its second Olympic lap last night, a little less breathless than the first, the beat a little slower, the roar softer but the ambitions as lofty.
The Paralympics sold the threadbare notion of Olympic idealism for the final time this year, on this occasion perhaps more credibly than the Games that preceded it. As a record 136 national flag-bearers strung out into the Olympic Stadium and around the 26-metre high polystyrene tree, seven-a-side footballer Gary Messett from Bray bearing the Tricolour, the sense was that people believe in these Games.
Smaller, leaner and still largely retaining many aspects of its infant purity, the Paralympic movement continues to threaten to become a much larger animal. Already twinned with its bigger brother, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), its sibling choice has been canny and wise.
Wednesday's announcement in the Athens Intercontinental Hotel that the Parapan American Games of 2007 will now be staged in conjunction with the Pan-American games is a marker for the other continental organisations. The IOC's little brother is demanding more entitlements under its patronage. One fanfare occasion every four years like last night's three-hour mime and fireworks opening celebration, is not enough activity to keep the Paralympic movement engaged. While it grows and makes efforts to trim its flabby edges, even greater recognition seems simply a matter of time.
That is also the quiet hope of several of the Irish athletes, who begin their competitions today. But the characteristic of several sports, and one that makes predicting outcomes a fool's game, is many of the athletes who arrive in Athens have little idea about the competitive levels of their opponents.
The ability to accurately track form is frustrated by the lack of events leading into the Games. Only last week a British athlete announced to the BBC she had been breaking the world record in her track event during training sessions. It was the first time anyone had heard the encouraging news. Needless to say, her confidence is high.
It would need to be. Britain, one of the most sophisticated nations in the development of Paralympism, won 20 gold medals in the pool four years ago in Sydney. Only two of those winning swims were outside either Paralympic or world record times.
For the sailors, John Twomey and his crew of Seánie McGrath and Brian O'Mahony in the Sonar class and Feargal Kinsella in the 2.4nR class, who begin Ireland's Games today in the Saronic Gulf off the coast of Athens, their preparations began less than encouragingly for medal causes. They now eye a podium place.
The boat that Twomey was to race had been shipped to Greece in August but left idle for three weeks. In the 30 degree-plus Greek heat, the hull of the boat began to delaminate and was rendered next to useless for competition. The nominated reserve on the boat, Paul McCarthy, was quickly asked to deliver the next best thing, his own boat. McCarthy obliged and the boat was brought from Cork. Twomey has a machine that is once again hydrodynamic.
"It was no fault of their own, maybe an oversight at the building process, which was carried out in cold conditions," said manager Amanda Wallace. "Paul ended up driving over with his own boat, which they have now prepped for racing."
These Games could be defined by robust optimism and personal struggle. The story of 14-year-old Mareena Karim, who will be the first Afghani female ever to compete as a Paralympic athlete, gathered momentum yesterday. She will run in the 100 metres in the T42 classification. Karim lives in Kabul with her 10 brothers and eight sisters after they fled the war that raged around them between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban in Kabissa. The family are now living in a ruined house in abject poverty. The teenager lost both her feet as an infant and is here because of the support of the Norwegian government.
"My mother told me that when I was a small child, my feet were burned. I was taken to hospital and my feet were amputated," she said.
So it goes. Afghanistan will probably not win a medal in the T42 100m event. It scarcely matters. Karim has already triumphed. That's the beginning.
As bloody-minded and as ruthless as any group of champions, competitive instincts are bullishly sharp. A feel-good veneer and a chummy personality it may have, but let's just say "let the Games begin".
